Fully automatic rapid microscope slide scanner

Abstract

Apparatus for and method of fully automatic rapid scanning and digitizing of an entire microscope sample, or a substantially large portion of a microscope sample, using a linear array detector synchronized with a positioning stage that is part of a computer controlled microscope slide scanner. The invention provides a method for composing the image strips obtained from successive scans of the sample into a single contiguous digital image.

1. A microscope slide scanner for creating a contiguous digital image of an entire microscope sample, comprising:
 a motorized stage configured to support a microscope sample and move the microscope sample at a substantially constant velocity; 
 at least one objective lens positioned for viewing at least a portion of the microscope sample; 
 at least one line scan camera optically coupled to the objective lens, the line scan camera having a linear field of view defined by a plurality of pixel elements arranged in at least one linear array; 
 at least one focusing optics whereby an optical signal from the objective lens is focused onto the plurality of pixel elements of the at least one line scan camera; 
 a data processor configured to synchronize velocity of the microscope sample with a line rate of the at least one line scan camera to digitize a plurality of contiguous linear fields of view and store in a memory said plurality of contiguous linear fields of view as a digital image strip, wherein a digital image strip comprises at least 30,000 contiguous linear fields of view, the data processor further configured to assemble a plurality of digital image strips into a contiguous digital image of an entire microscope sample and store the contiguous digital image. 
 
     
     
       2. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one line scan camera comprises at least one time delay integration (TDI) line scan camera. 
     
     
       3. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one line scan camera comprises at least one color array. 
     
     
       4. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the data processor is further configured to map optimal focus as a function of X-Y location on the microscope sample and move the at least one objective lens in the Z-axis to adjust the focus of the at least one line scan camera in accordance with said focus map while the velocity of the microscope sample is synchronized with the line rate of the at least one line scan camera. 
     
     
       5. The scanner of any of  claim 1 , wherein a first digital image strip has a first length and a first width and a second digital image strip has a second length and a second width, and wherein the first length and the second length are not equal. 
     
     
       6. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the first digital image strip has a first length and a first width and a second digital image strip has a second length and a second width, and wherein the first width and the second width are not equal. 
     
     
       7. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the data processor is further configured to decelerate the microscope sample to a substantially complete stop at the end of a digital image strip, wherein said deceleration desynchronizes the line rate of the at least one line scan camera and the velocity of the microscope sample and wherein allowances in both time and distance are made for the motorized stage to accelerate and decelerate at the beginning and end of each image strip. 
     
     
       8. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one line scan camera is capable of bi-directional scanning. 
     
     
       9. The scanner of  claim 1 , wherein the scanner further comprises an area scan camera connected to the data processor and the data processor is further configured to provide real time imagery data of the microscope sample using the area scan camera.